How easily does aiptasia spread?

[Pau Hana Reefer]

Great conversation going on here! Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

Luckily, I have a lot of choices for where I can go to make my purchases. I have at least 8 LFS within a 40 minute drive of my home (one of them being TSM Aquatics who have a really great quarantine process). I've only seen aiptasia in the one LFS mentioned in my original post. With how easy aiptasia spreads, I'm lucky enough to have the option to shop at the 7 other stores to minimize my chances of introducing it to my tank.

I will admit, I'm guilty of not having a quarantine system for my corals. I currently have a 20 gallon QT and a 10 gallon QT, both dedicated to fish. However, I'm pretty close to being at capacity for fish in my DT, so I'm exploring converting the 20 gallon to a coral QT in the next few months as I start shifting my focus to introducing more corals to my DT.

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

Get a bunch of peppermint shrimp and you won't have to worry about it. They likely won't kill the big ones, but they wipe out all of the small/tiny offspring.

 

[EmilyXLC]

It’s the Herpes virus of the marine world.

10/10 avoid

 

[Katrina71]

If you looked at it, it dropped some babies for ya.

 

[Crabby48]

Thanks @steallife904! Unfortunately, I currently only quarantine my fish since I do not have the appropriate lighting to quarantine corals. I really should though since I have definitely introduced hitchhiker worms into my tank.

How do you scrub a torch coral? Do you only scrub the skeleton?

You may not know but frags can introduce ich and other parasites that you are quarantining the fish for.
I don’t quarantine my frags but am picky where they come from to help the odds

 

[flsalty]

Good luck finding a system that doesn't have them.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Easy and quickly. They release free swimming babies that attach to rock, glass, pipes, intakes and spread like wild fire

 

[AquaLifeStudio]

I'm currently acclimating a Copperband Butterflyfish for this purpose in one of my QT tanks. I will be providing it some live rock with aiptasia from my main display in an attempt to train it to eat these pests. The Copperband isnt a sure thing though since some dont learn to eat the pest anemones.

I've also got those lovely Berghia Nudibranchs slithering through my sump and the overflow to help control the population in the mean time.

Berghia is the killing machine for these things but they work slow.

There's this poll on here that asks how satisfied you are with your tank, I'm in the "somewhat satisfied" group. I'd be completely satisfied if the aiptasia were eradicated, along with the stupid pest flatworms and starfish; Ive got a pair of Blue Velvet Nudibranchs and a Harlequin Shrimp for those. These highly specialized predators are amazing little creatures that do the killing for me.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I always had aiptasia here and there in my 300G then one day I decided to be stupid and blast one with aipstasia x and then they exploded. I probably had close to 125 of them within a month after trying to kill one. I bought 15 bhergia nudibranch which was pricey and didn't see them for 2 months and then started noticing my aipstasia slowly vanish and now there are maybe three or four left that are in hard to reach spots. I can now usually find several nudibranch slithering around at night and usually find a bunch in my sump.

One thing if you decide to go the bhergia nudibranch route, DO NOT RUN FILTER SOCKS

I probably slowed down my Bhergia reproduction by quite a bit by changing my filter socks; they are not the best at hanging on and sometimes hit a pocket of high flow and go floating around the tank. They are very hardy and survive trips down the overflow and back up through return pumps but I was changing socks once a week and decided to look in one before putting it in my bucket for cleaning. There were 3-4 bhergia moving around inside that I was able to put back in the tank.

Who knows how many I killed, until my aipstasia are gone I will not be using filter socks as I often find one of two of these guys in my sump. The good news is they killed all the aipstasia in the sump too (and overflow).

One other thing I noticed for the large aipstasia that really helps me. They can get really big, but I noticed the bigger ones LOVE attaching to the underbelly of my montipora. Since monti caps grow so fast and easy I usually just break off a small piece and gently cover the large aipstasia; after a few days it attaches to the monti to try and get closer to flow/light and I remove it easily by taking the entire frag out of the tank.

 

[Todd1white]

I’m a first time reefer. Started with a 180g 36” deep display tank a year and a half ago. Went through all the new tank uglies spending tens of thousands on gear and coral. Finally get my water right and now a complete aiptasia infestation. For the last 6 months I’ve tried everything, CBB, peppermints, file fish, berghia and chemicals. I don’t want to give up and admit failure, so I’m now trying to plan a complete reboot. Aiptasia is, by far, the worse thing that can happen in this hobby, in my opinion.

 

[inletfish]

skip the aptasia frags

 

[inletfish]

I’m a first time reefer. Started with a 180g 36” deep display tank a year and a half ago. Went through all the new tank uglies spending tens of thousands on gear and coral. Finally get my water right and now a complete aiptasia infestation. For the last 6 months I’ve tried everything, CBB, peppermints, file fish, berghia and chemicals. I don’t want to give up and admit failure, so I’m now trying to plan a complete reboot. Aiptasia is, by far, the worse thing that can happen in this hobby, in my opinion.

and vermited snails ugh

 

[sarcophytonIndy]

I’m a first time reefer. Started with a 180g 36” deep display tank a year and a half ago. Went through all the new tank uglies spending tens of thousands on gear and coral. Finally get my water right and now a complete aiptasia infestation. For the last 6 months I’ve tried everything, CBB, peppermints, file fish, berghia and chemicals. I don’t want to give up and admit failure, so I’m now trying to plan a complete reboot. Aiptasia is, by far, the worse thing that can happen in this hobby, in my opinion.

I sorry the peppermints didn't work for you. I got eight of them for a 125 gallon reef. I have never witnessed them eating the aiptasia, but after six weeks or so, all of the small babies were gone. I still have four large ones. One is quite gigantic, but I'm not worried, as the infestation has stopped.

 

[Rockit]

I've also got those lovely Berghia Nudibranchs slithering through my sump and the overflow to help control the population in the mean time.

Berghia is the killing machine for these things but they work slow.

Did you find the Berghia locally? I'm in Sacramento and have been looking for some... I saw you were in Fairfield.

 

[BOWHUNTER4250]

I got one on a frag and removed it. Now it's all over my entire tank. I'm going to order some nudis soon to take care of it haha

Nudis are hit or miss and expensive , i have a DD300 and had a massive problem with Aptasia , some so big they could eat small fish ! tried everything and mo luck , 2 filefish , nudis , aptasia x , etc ..... bought a 25.00 Kleins butterfly and within 2 weeks my entire tank was completely clear of aptasia , now these guys might pick at some zoas once all aptasi is gone but just another option that most people arent aware of .

 

[ScottR]

Peppermint shrimp: “my partner and I ate all the aiptasia in Scott’s tank. But then we developed a taste for acans and other fleshy LPS” Peppermints (Lysmata Wurdemanni) variety, work well but will turn to LPS after the job is done. I had a small outbreak and all aiptasia were gone in less than two weeks. They also cleaned out my amphipod population. But hey, it’s a price I’m willing to pay.

 

[ReefGrammie]

Excellent information! On my first reef tank, I dealt with aiptasia and bubble algae...I hated both and about drove myself insane, but finally eradicated them. After I upgraded to the 90 a few years ago, I decided the best way to avoid them was to never potentially have them in the first place! Yes, I was guilty of buying frags from a LFS where bubble algae and aiptasia were visible, so I basically shot myself in the foot!

Fast forward to my 90-gallon "reboot." I will be introducing my first corals this week. I plan to scrub the plugs and dip. I was actually going to ask the question about introducing corals today and came across this thread.

To answer the original poster: Like wildfire!!! ;Sour

 

[AquaLifeStudio]

Did you find the Berghia locally? I'm in Sacramento and have been looking for some... I saw you were in Fairfield.

I've got my berghia from saltyunderground.com. They arent cheap but I have found them to be effective and that's what I care about.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I've got my berghia from saltyunderground.com. They arent cheap but I have found them to be effective and that's what I care about.

Same.

 

[MichaelReefer]

Honestly, I feel like EVERY LFS has at least some aiptasia. Think about the turnaround, how many frags are hitting that water every week. I go to basically the most popular LFS in the Sacramento area and they have some, but their frags are in and out of those tanks in less than a few days basically.